The Secular Constitution of the United States 



ur Nation^* Death-Warrant 

" r ; 


ER IN THE National Reform 
Church, Boston, Oct. 24, 1911. 


I'acitus graphically describes the old scenes in 
which Roman consuls and senators vied with one 
another to be the mouthpiece of the yet unexpress¬ 
ed wishes of I'iberius Caesar. Jt is our purpose 
now to voice the message of the King of Kings to 
I lie ungodly and rebellious nation. Our subject as- 
Mimes that (iod is the Source of all authority and 
jiow^er, that the being, authority, and law' of the 
-late came from Ood, and that civil government is 
(iod’s moral order in this world for humanity. It 
taken for granted that the Lord Jesus Christ is 
ihe King of nations, that the titles “King of Kings 
and Lord of I.ords,” “fCince of the Kings of the 
earth,” “ the Covernor among the nations,” “God’s 
tirst-born, higher than the kings of any land,” pro¬ 
claim bfis possession of unlimited regal authority 
over the nations, making Him the official Head of 
of tlie executive, legislative and judicial depart¬ 
ments of government, that He has received author¬ 
ity to execute God’s judgments upon rebellious na¬ 
tions, and to liestow^ the blessings of heaven and 
earth upon obedient nations, the treasures of wrath 
and the treasures of mercy being in His hand. He 
pours cut the one upon the enemies and the other 
upon the friends of ffis Mediatorial Dominion. Jt 
postulates that liie ICble is the law-book of na¬ 
tions. accompanied wdth blessings to the nation 
whose God is the L.ord. and pronouncing the 
wrath and curse of God upon impenitent and re¬ 
bellious natimis. To the righteous nation which 





keepeth the truth lie says: lUessed ib the nation 
whose God is the Lord, open ye the gates that the 
King of glory may come in.” lint to the wicked 
and ungodly nation He says: "Ihe glorious and 
mighty" Lord that sits at thy right hand, shall in 
His day of wrath strike through kings that do Him 
withstand.” “He that in heaven sits shall laugh, 
the Lord shall scorn them all: then shall He speak 
to them in wrath, in rage Lie vex them shall. 
"Thou shalt as with a weighty rod of iron break 
them all; and as a potter's sherd thou shalt them 
dash in pieces small.’’ "The nation and kingdoni 
that will not serve thee shall perish, yea, those na¬ 
tions shall l^ie utterly wasted.” "The adversaric-^ 
of the Lord shall be broken in pieces, out of heaven 
shall He thunder upon them.” "Whosoever shall 
fall upon this stone shall be broken, but upon 
whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to pow¬ 
der.” 

Our subject futhermore premises that the 
Reigning Mediator has issued His decree—Ilis 
ultimatum to the nations, and He is already march¬ 
ing forth to execute His judgment upon all the 
nations that will not bow to His mediatorial scep¬ 
ter. He will have the homage of the nations, peace¬ 
ably if we will, forcibly if He must. The manifesto 
of the King is a reprieve and manumission to the 
nation that humbles itself and confesses its sins, 
seeks forgiveness in the divineh appointed way 
through the Lord Jesus Christ, and swears true al¬ 
legiance to the Savior-King. Rut it is a death-war¬ 
rant to the nations that will not accept His terms 
of unconditional surrender. 

A death-warrant is a legal instrument, issued bv^ 
the court, served upon the convicted criminal, noti-^, 
fying him that the law demands his life as a forfeit, T 
and that the sentence of the court is now to be 
executed. The Constitution of the United States 
is the foundation upon which our Republican gov¬ 
ernment rests. But instead of the Rock of Acres 


the shifting sands of public opinion are its support. 
It is the supreme law of the land. But instead of 
acknowledging God as the Author of the nation’s 
being and authority and law, it knows no higher 
power than "we, the people.” It is “the letter of 
instruction” from the nation to its government, di¬ 
recting how its will shall be carried out. But, in- 
>tead of recognizing the Christian Scriptures as the 
sole and only fountain of law, the will of the people 
is set up in "the initiative, referendum and recall.” 
It is the nation’s declaration of political faith. Bin 
while the true Christian religion is the nation’s life, 
it provides that no religious test shall ever be re 
quired for office and trust in this land. 

Rev. S. B. Wylie, D. D., in "The Two Sons of 
Oil,” said: “The Federal Constitution, or instru¬ 
ment of national union, does not even recognize 
the existence of God, the King of Kings. In those 
civil deeds, though the immediate end may be the 
happiness of the Commonwealth, yet the ultimate 
end, as well in this as in every other thing we do, 
should be the glory of God. Ought not men in the 
formation of their deeds, to consider their respon¬ 
sibility to the moral Governor and their obligation 
to acknowledge His authority? (Prov. 3:5). ‘tn 
all thy ways acknowledge Him and he shall direct 
thy paths.’ That a national deed, employed about 
the fundamental stipulations of magistracy as an 
ordinance of God, and the investiture of the magis¬ 
trates as His ministers, should nowhere recognize 
the existence of the Governor of the universe, is, to 
say nothing worse of it, truly lamentable. May it 
not be said of this nation as of Israel (Hosea 8:4) : 
‘They have set up kings, but not by me; they have 
made princes, and I knew it not’? Did not the 
framers of this instrument act not only as if there 
had been no divine revelation for the supreme 
standard of their conduct, but also as if there had 
been no God? Did they not in this resemble the 
fool mentioned in Psalm 14:1, 3, who ‘said in his 


.**•3 



licart, there is no God’? Every official act of the 
^'•overnor of a province must have some specific 
stamp of his dependence upon the authority which 
appointed him.—and shall a nation act as it mde- 
])en(lent of the God of the universe, and ex])ect t 
1 e guiltless.” Therefore we conclude that it is “the 
nation’s death warrant” which the Reigning Media¬ 
tor has iiermitted this nation to serve U])on it-elf. 

I. It Atrophies and Strangles Our Nation’s Life. 
“'Po atrophy” is to reduce the vital forces of organ¬ 
ic life. “To strangle” is to finish that destructive 
work u})on the organic life. The secular Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States both atrophies and stran¬ 
gles the life of the organic people. Consider h^w 
it operates. In 1869, the question of the legality 
»'f reading the Bible in the public schools of Cincin 
mati was referred to the sujireme court of Ohio. Af- 
Tc'r listening to learned attorneys for three davs tic: 
court decided that, because the words “Christian” 
or “Bible” or “God” are not found in the Ibiited 
States Constitution, therefore the Bible should not 
l^e read in the ])ublic schools. And to this dav it 
is excluded. In 1890 the supreme court of AViscon- 
sin rendered a decision giving an estop to the read¬ 
ing of the Bible in the public schools of the com¬ 
monwealth. And that has been in force ever since, 
l.ast winter the supreme court of Illinois decided 
that the reading of the Bible or offering prayer or 
singing Christian songs was unconstitutional and so 
are inhibited. The supreme law of this land makes it 
unconstitutional to read the Bible or offer prayer 
in any public school throughout the Union. And 
when the enemies of the true Christian religion 
force the issue this calamity will become an accom¬ 
plished fact. Will not that atrophy and strangle 
our nation’s life? Take the oath. It is administer¬ 
ed in all our courts of justice. It is administered to 
all civil officers, when inducted into office. Now. 
an oath is an act of worship, ft is a solemn appeal 



to Gcd to witness the truth of what is stated. 
that oath is uncoiistitu:ional. The Constiution pro¬ 
vides that when the “President is inauguarated he 
shall swear or affirm.” And every President after 
(ieorge Washington and before R. B. Hayes, took 
the Presidential oath without an appeal to God. 
Rev. D. X. Junkin, D. D., said: “The oath of the 
President of the United States (as embodied in 
the Constitution) could as well be taken by a 
pagan or a Mohammedan, as by the chief magis¬ 
trate of a Christian people ; it excludes the name of 
the Supreme Being. Indeed, it is negatively atheis¬ 
tic, for no God is appealed to at all. In framing 
many of our public formulas, greater care seems 
to have been taken to adapt them to the prejudice . 
of the infidel few, than to the consciences of the 
Christian millions. In these things the minority, 
in our country, has hitherto managed to govern 
the majority. In every oath the name of God 
should, in obedience to the Divine command, be 
interposed; and we look upon the designed omis¬ 
sion of it as an attempt to exclude from civil af¬ 
fairs Him who is “the governor among the nations 
(Psalms 22:28).” Now, if the enemies of the God 
of truth are minded to carry this question to the 
supreme court, there is no constitutional authority 
for requiring witnesses or officials to appeal to God 
in taking oath. To abolish the oath from out- 
courts and from the initiation of officials would 
atrophy and strangle our nation’s life. Take the 
Sabbath. In 1810 Congress passed a law requiring 
the U. S. mail to be carried on Sabbath. In 1828, 
there were 456 petitions from 21 different states 
sent to Washington against that law. But the 
Postmaster General ignored them because the U. S. 
Constitution makes no provision for the Sabbath. 
It is true it says: “The President shall have 10 
days to sign a bill, Sundays excepted.” But that 
is no legal basis for Sabbath-keeping. It does noi 
keep the President frpm traveling on Sabbath. I; 


does ‘not hinder Cong^ress continuing’ its sessions 
on Sabbath. It is simply an aside, to give the Pres¬ 
ident that holiday relief. Looking at it the Post¬ 
master General said: “As long as the silver river 
flow and the green grass grows and the oceanic 
tides rise and fall on the first day of the week, so 
long the U. S. mail will continue to circulate on 
that day.’’ The state of Connecticut passed a law 
forbidding unnecessary trains on Sabbath. But 
the express trains, carrying the U. S. mail, ran 
through their state on Sabbath, and the legislature 
was powerless to prohibit it. Interstate commerce 
and the U. S. mail service on Sabbath are in accord 
with the secular Constitution: and they are atro¬ 
phying and strangling our national life. 

Yonder in Burmah there are vines that girdle 
the great oak and form a network about the trunk 
from the roots to the highest branches, and it 
draws its cords so tightly and takes so much of the 
substance from the oak’s nourishment, that the 
forest king is atrophied and strangled. Now, sec¬ 
ularism in our land is doing that for the tree of 
our Pvepublic. Let our national life be brought into 
harmony with our secular constitution by abolish¬ 
ing all our Sabbath laws, banishing the Bible from 
our public schools, eliminating the oath from our 
courts and officials, abrogating the laws making 
blasphemy and profanity punishable, discontinuing 
chaplains in army and navy, in congressional ancl 
legislative halls, prisons and eleemosynary institu¬ 
tions, and our Republic will be atrophied and 
strangled. The national Constitution that does 
that is the nation’s death-warrant. 

II. It constitutes the colossal crime of our na¬ 
tion in debauching the consciences of her Christian 
citizens by requiring them to swear allegiance to 
her secular Constitution as the condition of exer¬ 
cising their political privileges in the governing 
body. Our constitutional theory is that civil gov¬ 
ernment is only a wise hupian institution, having 


only material ends in view. This theory has 
wrought like a leaven in our national life. The peo¬ 
ple have concluded that, if the government is only 
a business corporation, then the family, which the 
government creates, is only a civil contract, and 
can ])e dissolved at the will of the parties. And 
hence the destruction of 945,000 families by divorce 
in 20 years. If the government can carry on the 
U. S. mail service on Sabbath, there is no obliga¬ 
tion resting upon the people to sanctify the Lord's 
Day and keep it holy. If the government can legal¬ 
ize the saloon system, there can be no harm in 
drinking. The virus of secularism is doing its dead¬ 
ly work. The old adage is: Let a man tell you 
his story every day for a year, and he is your mas¬ 
ter. The Constitution of the United States has 
told its story of secularism to the people for 122 
years and we are almost a secular nation. A few 
more years and our cup will be full. Christian cit¬ 
izens are coming to believe that while it is their 
duty to obey Christ in ’he sphere of church life, 
they are not under obligation to obey Christ thi 
King in the realm of political life. The legislature 
ot California passed a law, forbidding their chaplain 
to mention the name of Christ in his prayers offered 
at the opening of their sessions. And the chaplain, 
a Christian minister, has obeyed that order for the 
])ast three years. In his own pulpit on Sabbath he 
lionors Christ by praying in His name. But in 
the legislative chamber he offers an affront to the 
name that is above every name by purposely omit¬ 
ting it from his prayers. Does he forget that the 
fehovah of hosts is a jealous God! He plucks the 
blood-bought crown from the brow of the Redeem¬ 
er and trails it in the dust. All over the land the 
cry is being raised, “Political corruption is eating 
our national life like a canker!” Voters in Adams 
county. Ohio are punished for selling their votes. 
But vote-buying is not limited to one county or 
state. Graft'in the legislatures of Ohio and Illinois 

; 



is being' probed, but they are not the only guilt\ 
legislatures. The Lorimer case in the U. S. Senate, 
is being investigated, but he is not the only senator 
whose election is tainted. Our city governments 
are too often trusts exploited l^y political tricksters 
for gain. Our state governments are too often un¬ 
der the power of cormorant syndicates. The Tait 
administration, while probing the sugar and steel 
trusts with one hand, is busy with the other disen¬ 
gaging itself from the Guggenheim-Morgan tenta¬ 
cles in Alaska. You can’t make ])eople healthy 
physically by feeding them on 1 ad and poi .cnou^ 
food. You can't make people strong menially hy 
giving them only trashy novels. You can’t make 
good, upright citizens by giving them secularisnn 
Character is built by moral and religious principles, 
d'hese moral principles must be studied, believe ! 
and incorporated into the citizen’s life, become the 
rule and law of his being, and thus be steadfastly 
kept, vindicated, promulgated and applied. lUu the 
consciences of our Christian citizens are vitiated l)y 
swearing allegiance to our secular Constitution. K 
not that the nation’s death-warrant? 

III. It opens our doors for the incoming of our 
national foes. The nation of Israel was protected 
from the nations round about which were ready t(' 
invade their land and make of them a prey by the 
invisible shield of their covenant God. And so long 
as they kejrt their covenant with God and ob.eyeu 
His law they were safe. But when they violated 
their covenant and transgressed God’s law. He re¬ 
moved the shield and they were exposerl tc; tb.c 
violence of the enemy. Seven times in the book rd 
Judges the people apostatized from their God and 
worshipped idols. And each time one of the heathen 
nations, the Philistines, the Edomites, the Moabites, 
the Amanonites, invaded the land and oppressed the 
])eople. But each time, when they cried out to God. 
He raised up a deliverer and freed them from the 
hand of their oppressors. The history of the kings 

^8 ‘ 


i 



is a series of departures from the living God, and 
their distresses, because of the enemy coming in 
like an overthrowing flood. Isaiah warned them of 
death and hell as the inevitable consequence of 
their sinfulness. But they said: “We are in cove^ 
nant with death and with hell are we at agreement.’* 
And then came the deportation in the Babylonian 
captivit3\ 

Before the W'ar of the Rebellion, Wendell Phil¬ 
lips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison and the Covenanters de¬ 
clared: “The Constitution of the United States is 
a covenant with death and a league with hell, be¬ 
cause it opens our doors wide for the fugitive slave 
traffic to come in and enjoy protection.” The war 
destroyed slavery, and a humbled nation adopted 
the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. But they are 
not operative in safeguarding the rights of our col¬ 
ored citizens, because a nation that does not fear 
God will not and cannot safeguard the rights of the 
poor and weak and humble. 

The colonists dedicated this land to Protestant 
Christianity. For 150 years they maintained their 
civil and religious freedom. In the WTr of the Revo ¬ 
lution they secured a separate, independent govern¬ 
ment. The treaty with Great Britain signed in Paris 
in 1783 secured this. France claimed our “Territory 
of the Northwest” as her reward for assisting the 
colonists. But Great Britain’s Protestantism prompt¬ 
ed her to join the United States in resisting that. 
A French Roman Catholic Province sandwiched in 
our Republic would have been dangerous. But in 
1789, the adoption of our national Constitution 
brought into vogue that universal religious toler¬ 
ance, which placed “the mother of harlots” on a par 
with “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” At this open 
door, furnished by our secular Constitution, the 
church of Rome came in and proceeded to occupy 
municipal, state and national seats of power. The 
Philistines, Syrians, Edomites and Moabites invad¬ 
ing Israel were not scj cja^ngerous and destructive 



as Rome in our midst. Rev. James Stewart, D. D., 
missionary to Africa, tells the story of the parcelling 
out of Africa among the governments of Europe. 
Out of eleven and one-half millions of square miles, 
with 170,000,000 people, more than ten millions 
have been 'seized and exploited for commercial 
purposes by the Europeans. It began in the slave 
trade; but soon the gold mines, diamond fields, 
ivory, rubber, and other forms of wealth aroused 
the greed of the invaders. France has taken three 
million square miles; Great Britain has appropria¬ 
ted two and one-half million square miles; Belgium 
has taken 990,000 square miles; Germany has 
seized 850,000 square miles; while Italy, Spain and 
Portugal have secured one and one-half million 
square miles among them. Well, the Roman hierar¬ 
chy has come into America and proceeded to do for 
herself what the powers of Europe did in Africa in 
concert. She has taken our great cities and holds 
95 percent of the municipal offices. She has in¬ 
stalled herself in our state legislatures and secures 
what she wishes. She has established herself at 
Washington and manipulates national legislation 
at her will. Siam, a kingdom of 7,000,000 and a land 
of inexhaustible resources undeveloped, is a buffer 
between Annani, a French possession, on the East, 
and Burmah, a British possession, on the West 
Either power would take it were it not for the oth¬ 
er Watchdog. Persia, a kingdom of 10,000,000, is 
a buffer between Russia on the North and British 
possessions on the South. Neither will allow the 
other to go in and take possession. Well, Protest¬ 
antism in the political field of America is a kind ot 
buffer between Roman Catholicism with its ii,oco,- 
000 and the secret oath-bound lodge system, with. 
its 11,000,000 members. And the awful fact is, that 
Romanism and the secret lodge system are just as 
constitutional as Protestantism. If Protestantism 
had the spine of John Calvin in Geneva or John 
Knox in Edinburgh, it would arise in its might and 


.r® 



Christianize our national Constitution and eliminate 
Rome and the secret oath-bound lodge system 
irom the political arena. But Avhile they, as v/eak 
and cowardly betrayers of the cause of truth and 
righteousness, surrender to the foe before and be¬ 
hind, our secular Constitution serves the death- 
warrant upon our nation. 

By adopting a secular Constitution the organi. 
people have voted God and His Christ from the 
throne, that “we, the people” may occupy it. But 
when God goes out Satan comes in. The suicide^, 
infanticides, assassinations and brutal murders tha' 
are so alarmingly frequent are evidence of satanic 
agency in our midst. But Satan is more concerned 
with politics. The bold and unblushing frauds and 
grafts in politics cause all decent people to hang 
their heads in shame. But Satan has a more far- 
reaching design than our nation suspects. Porto 
Rico and the Philippines have added 10,000,000 Ro¬ 
man Catholics. The inspired uprisings in Cuba 
are furnishing a pretext at Washington for talk oi 
our government interfering and taking Cuba int'^t 
our fold. That will add millions more of Roman 
ists. Then the Central Americas, with their chronic- 
revolutions, must be subjected to benevolent assim^ 
ilation to make the Panama canal secure. Then 
Mexico will have demonstrated that in union with 
our government her internal strife will have sur¬ 
cease. And then the Roman Catholic hierarchy 
will have a clear majority and will vault into the 
saddle, and it may be Cardinal Gibbons, President. 
That will be the fruition of Satan’s plan. That is 
the enemy to which our secular Constitution sets 
an open door. Is it not the death-warrant of our 
nation ? 

IV. It exposes us to the displeasure and wrath 
of the Reigning Mediator. Dr. James R. Wilson, 
in his sermon on ”The Subjection of Kings and Na¬ 
tions to Messiah,” before the New York legislature 
in 1820, said: ”In the United States the refusal to 



acknowledge God has been more explicit than it ev¬ 
er was in any other nation. Soon after we had obtain¬ 
ed, through the beneficent providence of God, lib¬ 
eration from the dominion of a foreign power, soon 
after the most eminent displays of Jehovah’s good¬ 
ness to our land, the convention elected to form ar¬ 
ticles of fundamental law for the Commonwealth, 
rejected the government of God, and with a degree 
of ingratitude, perhaps without a parallel, formed a 
Constitution in which there is not the slightest him 
of homage to the God of heaven.” 

I'he Savior said: ‘‘Wheresoever the carcass is 
thither will the vultures be gathered together.” 
Moral principles are the life of the organic people. 
When these are lost the nation becomes a dead car¬ 
cass. Then the law comes into operation that re¬ 
moves the offensive body. The kingdom of Judah 
rejected and crucified the Lord. They lost their 
good. The Roman legions were the vultures to re¬ 
move the carrion. Rome pagan persecuted the 
church and became as a dead man morally. The 
“barbarian hordes” from the North were the vul¬ 
tures to devour the carcass. The slave system in 
the South was the carcass, “the boys in blue” the 
vultures to remove it. Spain in Cuba and the Phil¬ 
ippines was the carcass. Our army and navy were 
the vultures to remove it. A traveler visited Ham- 
adan in Persia, the old “Shushan the Palace” of 
Ahashuerus and Esther, the city on a conical hill, 
with five walls of different colors of marble, the 
capital of the Medo-Persian empire of 127 prov¬ 
inces, over which Artaxerxes ruled. But today it 
is a squalid place, and the odors are so offensive 
that they say the clocks are stopped by it. Babylon 
and Nineveh were once the seat of mighty empires 
on the Euphrates and Tigris. But today they are 
mounds of rubbish. Egypt was the seat of the 
earliest civilization. It is a field for archaeologist.^ 
who are unearthing riches and grandeur, art and 
architecture of 3500 years ago. Greece was the 



liome of literature and art 2500 years ago and Rome 
the seat of law and power 2000 years ago. But all 
these have passed into oblivion. Why were they 
cut off? Because they were worldly, selfish, devil¬ 
ish. Their vice and crime, their irreligion and 
cruelty served as a conductor to bring down the 
lightning of divine wrath. ‘Tf the foundations be 
destroyed, what can the righteous do? God in His 
holy temple is, in heaven is His throne. His eyes 
do see. His eyelids try men’s sons, the just He 
proves, but His soul hates the wicked man, and 
him that violence loves. Snares, fire and brimstone, 
furious storms on sinners He shall rain: this as 
the portion of their cup doth unto them pertain.” 

Nebuchadnezzar’s image represents the world 
powers. It is reproduced in our land. “The head 
of gold” is the secular government; “the arms of 
silver” are Rome and the Jesuit order: “the belly 
and thighs of brass” are the secret orders and false 
religions; “the legs of iron” are the trusts and or¬ 
ganized labor; and the feet and toes of iron and 
miry clay, the mixture of true and false religion. 
The image was smitten by the little stone cut out 
of the mountains without hands and became as 
chafif of the summer’s threshing floor, and was driv 
en away by a rushing mighty wind. The time is 
at hand. The image is soon to fall under the iron 
rod in the hand of the Reigning Mediator. “The 
adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces; 
out of heaven shall He thunder upon them.” 

V. It is a fatal barrier to the regeneration of our 
nation by the Holy Ghost. A nation is a moral be¬ 
ing having reason, will and conscience, and capable 
of rights and obligations. It has a character fo' 
good or evil, as distinct as the individual. It sins 
and is punished, confesses and is forgiven. It has 
a capacity for receiving the Holy Ghost. He only 
enlightens the social mind, subdues the social will 
to Christ, awakens the social conscience to right- 
; 



eotisness and inclines the nation’s soul to seek the 
glory of Christ. 

But the Holy Ghost is given to the nation as a 
gift from Christ the King. He exercises His Medi¬ 
atorial dominion by the Holy Ghost. He communi¬ 
cates His Spirit to the nation through the truths 
of the Sovereignty of God, the Kingship of Christ, 
and the supremacy of the Scriptures. He regen¬ 
erates the nation by these truths of the Kingdom. 
He brings these truths to bear upon the nation by 
the testimony of His faithful and true witnesses. 
“Of His own will begat He us by the word of God. 
Being born again, not of corruptible, but of incor¬ 
ruptible seed, by the word of the Lord which liveth 
and abideth forever.” And for the nation to de 1 i 1 >- 
erately eliminate these gospel truths of the King¬ 
dom from its confession of national faith is to say : 
“Depart from me, for I desire not of Thy ways." 
Is that not serving the nation’s death-warrant? 

Dr. Mulford, in “The Nation,” says: “As the 
nation is called to be a power in history, it is in the 
realization of its being the Christian nation. It is 
this in its necessary conception. It is thus that it- 
freedom has been wrought in the power of the re¬ 
demption, and its renewal in the power of the 
resurrection. In other words, the only completion 
of the state is in the Christian state, and it is as a 
power in history, which is the redemptive life of 
humanity, that it has its vocation and its destina¬ 
tion.” “In the new ages, the ages of Christ and 
His coming, the nations have existed in the histori¬ 
cal Christian development. The formative prin¬ 
ciple of their life has been derivative from the Life. 
Tlie Christ is called the only King, the Deliverer, 
in obedience to whom the freedom of the individ¬ 
ual and the nation consists. And as there has been 
in nations the recognition of the Christ as the King, 
there has been the foundation of a national life, and 
the unity in which alone the divisions of the race 
are overcome. The nation is to work in the realiza- 

t'A : 


tion on the earth of His Kingdom, who is the only 
and eternal King. It becomes then no more the 
Kingdom of this world, but the Kingdom of Him 
whose reign is of eternal truth—the reign in which 
is the realization of personality, there is the free¬ 
dom of man.” But our secular Constitution defeats 
all this. Is it not our nation’s death-warrant? 

Rev. Win. Bacon Stevens, D. D., preached a ser¬ 
mon in Philadelphia in 1858, on “The True Glory 
of a Nation.” He found it to be the true Christian 
religion. He quoted the poet’s magnificent apos¬ 
trophe to our ship of state: 

“Sail on, O Union, strong and great, 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all its hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 

We know what Master laid thy keel, 

; \V hat workmen wrought thy ribs of steel: 

; Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 

; What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! 

Then the preacher adds: “But beautiful as this 
is as poetry, soul-stirring as to its patriotism, it 
lacks some essential elements which the religion of 
Jesus only can supply. Unless that ‘ship of state' 
is guided by the compass of God’s word; unless its 
helm is firmly held by pure and undefiled religion; 
unless its canvas swells to the winds of the Spirit; 
unless it is manned by Christian hands and sailed 
under Christian colors, it will, despite its well-laid 
keel, its massive ribs, its weighty anchor, its majes¬ 
tic form, its towering mast, its freighted hopes and 
liearts, only be the sport of the angry waves of 
anarchy, corruption and licentiousness. We shall 
escape the shipwreck which has befallen every oth¬ 
er republic only as we, like the disciples on the 
storm-tossed waves of the Sea of Galilee, take 
Christ into the ship of state whose voice alone can 

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hush the raging stomi of faction, calm the dashing 
waves of popular fury, and say to the surging na¬ 
tion, ‘Peace, be still/ Christ in the individual heart, 
Christ in the ship of state, and we have that Right¬ 
eousness which will exalt our nation, making it the 
glory of all lands, because it will be ‘Emanuer-^ 
land, a mountain of holiness and a dwelling-place of 
righteousness/ ” But our secular Constitution de¬ 
feats all this. Is it not our nation’s death-warrant? 

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